{"id":634271,"date":"2026-06-12T04:44:15","date_gmt":"2026-06-12T04:44:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/634271\/"},"modified":"2026-06-12T04:44:15","modified_gmt":"2026-06-12T04:44:15","slug":"the-women-in-adela-janskas-paintings-are-watching-you","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/634271\/","title":{"rendered":"The Women in Ad\u00e9la Jansk\u00e1\u2019s Paintings Are Watching You"},"content":{"rendered":"

In Near Field, Czech painter Ad\u00e9la Jansk\u00e1 presents uncanny portraits of women whose steady gazes draw viewers into an exploration of intimacyJune 11, 2026<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is important to me that the woman is not perceived only through her body, but also through her own gaze,\u201d says Ad\u00e9la Jansk\u00e1, whose large scale paintings of doll-like figures are now on display at Rolando Anselmi gallery in a solo show titled Near Field. \u201cI feel that the gaze largely determines who the woman in the painting is.\u201d Familiar yet strange, Jansk\u00e1\u2019s figures appear to dwell in a different dimension, one that is close yet beyond our reach. Humming with tension, each subject seem to carry the weight of something left unsaid. Jansk\u00e1\u2019s women watch and wait for some kind of acknowledgement, their muted chalky pastel hues only accentuating the sense of disquiet.<\/p>\n

13Ad\u00e9la Jansk\u00e1: Near Field<\/a><\/p>\n

Born and based in Olomouc, in the present-day Czech Republic, Jansk\u00e1 was raised in the final decade of the Soviet Union. She recalls growing up in a house filled with art books and paintings. \u201cPainting and drawing were always a natural part of my life, but for a long time I did not see them as a defined professional path,\u201d she says. \u201cAfter grammar school, I had to decide what to study next, and at that point it felt most natural to try applying to an art academy. But without any systematic preparation, it took some time before I actually started studying painting.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Some years on and the artist has exhibited internationally in group shows in New York, China and across Europe. Near Field is Jansk\u00e1\u2019s second solo show at Rolando Anselmi, following her residency in 2024 which culminated in an exhibition that saw her work paired with Lexia Hachtmann\u2019s at the gallery\u2019s Berlin headquarters.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Since then, her compositions have become sparser and the colour palette more subdued, as she paints with a sense of clarity and maturity. \u201cThese paintings came very lightly, almost as if they happened without me,\u201d she says of her more recent work. \u201cThere is no visible conflict in them, no attempt to improve or add something. They feel exactly as they should be.\u201d <\/p>\n

\"Pin<\/a>\"Ad\u00e9lacut out, 2026Artwork by Ad\u00e9la Jansk\u00e1<\/p>\n

For Jansk\u00e1, painting is a way of life. She goes to the studio daily, starting early in the morning and working until the evening. She doesn\u2019t like to be interrupted, needing to concentrate to maintain momentum and a clarity of vision. \u201cWhen I become immersed in a certain painting or subject, it stays with me until it gradually becomes exhausted,\u201d she reflects. \u201cSometimes this takes several weeks, sometimes even months. I feel that my work has a certain recurring cycle: to begin with something new, to discover it, to test it, and then to stop in time, before only routine is left.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jansk\u00e1 adopted the term \u2018near field\u2019 for the exhibition\u2019s title from scientific vocabulary to describe electromagnetic fields. \u201cThe term interested me because of the idea of a close field \u2013 a space where things affect each other from immediate proximity,\u201d she says. Relationships engender a kind of magnetic pull, becoming a two-sided exchange. The gaze reflects this dynamic, in which there is invariably a non-verbal dialogue between two people.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Last year, Jansk\u00e1 became her father\u2019s carer as he neared the end of his life. \u201cThis experience shook my life deeply, not only because of the loss itself, but also because I cared for him until the very end.\u201d The term \u2018near field\u2019 took on a more poignant meaning, as family members became closer, especially Jansk\u00e1 and her sister. Subsequently, pairs of women began to appear in her work.<\/p>\n

\"Pin<\/a>\"Ad\u00e9laone as many II, 2026Artwork by Ad\u00e9la Jansk\u00e1<\/p>\n

\u201cOnly with some distance did I begin to understand how strongly this period had affected my work,\u201d she says. \u201cI see caring for my father as a great privilege. It brought me to a deeper understanding of our relationships, and also of things that we often do not perceive so clearly in everyday life. I dealt with everything in the solitude of my studio.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Jansk\u00e1\u2019s portraits occupy a space that is both personal and universal. She references a variety of sources and visual materials \u2013\u00a0dolls, mannequins, fashion photography and sometimes even herself \u2013 rather than selecting a specific person or life model. Opaque in their perfection, there is a flatness to each figure that belies their personhood. \u201cI feel that painting naturally carries something from both personal and collective experience,\u201d she says.\u00a0<\/p>\n

She denies that her works are a commentary on female beauty standards. \u201cThis naturally affects me, because I am a woman and I live in a time that repeatedly reopens questions around the way women, the female body, and beauty are looked at.\u201d But she does admit that the works undeniably absorb their surroundings. \u201cPaintings are made within the world, not outside of it. The way the female body is perceived, represented, or judged is of course part of that environment.\u201d <\/p>\n

\"Pin<\/a>\"Ad\u00e9lanear field II, 2026Artwork by Ad\u00e9la Jansk\u00e1<\/p>\n

Jansk\u00e1 highlights that the gaze is dependent on both onlooker and subject. \u201cNear Field describes a state in which something, or someone, is so close that it is no longer possible to remain a neutral observer,\u201d she explains. \u201cThat gaze can be insistent, and sometimes it almost seems to follow the viewer wherever they move. I think it always says something not only about the woman in the painting, but also about the person looking at her.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

For Jansk\u00e1, painting is a process of teasing out this dynamic, creating a portrait that is visually harmonious but charged with tension, \u201cso that it does not feel like a dead image, but instead like something alive.\u201d<\/p>\n

Near Field is on show at Rolando Anselmli gallery in Rome until 30 September 2026.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In Near Field, Czech painter Ad\u00e9la Jansk\u00e1 presents uncanny portraits of women whose steady gazes draw viewers into…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":634272,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[6225,6485,6486,1120,96,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-634271","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-arts-and-design","tag-arts","tag-arts-and-design","tag-artsanddesign","tag-design","tag-entertainment","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/634271","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=634271"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/634271\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/634272"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=634271"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=634271"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=634271"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}